Orell Füssli Book Retailing Division
Changes in reading habits and increasing pressure on selling prices as a result of the declining euro exchange rate caused a 3% reduction in sales revenues to CHF 119.9 million at Orell Füssli Book Retailing in the year under review (CHF 123.6 million in 2009). A shift towards Internet sales and downloads from the steadily growing stock of digital books is apparent in book retailing. A further strong increase in business with large customers was encouraging. Excluding the book gain realised in 2009 from the sale of premises no longer required for business, the division’s operating earnings increased by 23% compared with the previous year, to a figure of CHF 2.2 million.
Events:
Unprofitable bookstores were closed in the year under review in Schaffhausen and at Spitalgasse in Berne. The elimination of uneconomic selling space will continue in 2011. The bookstore in the Zurich Niederdorf specialising in architecture, design, photography and art was closed in February 2011 and the business integrated in the expanded main store at Kramhof on Füsslistrasse. Management aims to create the preconditions for boosting profitability by streamlining outlets. Orell Füssli has introduced professional management of book-related supplementary products to improve product range control in order to increase the productivity of bookstore space.
In response to the increasing shift of book retailing to the Internet, Orell Füssli opened storyworld.ch as a second platform alongside books.ch, primarily in order to address price-sensitive customers. Orell Füssli has launched various projects in order not to be left behind by the move to e-books, which is gaining momentum, even though competition here is largely unstructured to date.